Halis

I took this picture of Halis in 1982 in Kettle Moraine Forest in Wisconsin.  He had come up from Urbana-Champaign, where he was finishing his M.S., to visit me in Milwaukee, where I was teaching at the Intensive English Institute at the university. 

His father had died and he knew he was going back to Turkey for his military service in a few months.  Our relationship was up in the air, but I felt certain that my love for him would triumph in the end.

All my longing for and idealization of him are expressed in this photo.  In the darkroom, I lingered over his emerging image in its acid bath, and printed several copies.